This is What Happened When I Tried to Make New Friends on an App

I tested Huggle, a new friendship-making app that focuses on the places you go—rather than what you look like.

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By
Maddy Budd

Dec 20, 2016

Unlike many 20-something women in New York City, I am unversed in the world of dating apps. I shied away from Tinder after hearing endless horror stories from friends, and never took to Bumble even after some of them found what seems like true love by swiping right. Suffice it to say, I had never considered using an app for romance, let alone to make new friends. How awkward, weird, and stressful would that be?

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But as someone fairly new to New York, making friends was proving to be a challenge—really, who has the time to fit in building new relationships while settling into a new house and a new job?

So with a little bit of nudging, I agreed to give the new friendship-making app, Huggle, a go. The concept seemed pretty simple: discover and connect with people who visit the same places and do the same things as you. I had nothing to lose and all of the friendships to gain.

Compared to other apps where the selection process is based on someone's appearance, Huggle connects or pairs you through locations and check-ins. The app uses GPS to automatically check you in at all the places you go—think stores, restaurants, and museums. Only when someone else has checked into the same place can you see their profile. The profiles are pretty standard, showing age, work, education, a short bio, and one photo, along with the check-ins you have in common and any mutual Facebook friends. For security purposes, you are unable to see all of their check ins and can only view the places you have in common.

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The shallow nature of other apps is missing, which I like. I'm not crazy about the idea of someone choosing me based on my age and appearance, and on the flip side, I don't think seeing three photos of someone gives me enough information to know if I would like to talk to them or not. However, if someone goes to the same café as me, then that at least gives me some insight into their life and what we might have in common. Plus, it's a good conversation starter.

Using check-ins to connect with people hits close to home for Huggle co-founders, model Stina Sanders and gardening blogger Valerie Stark. When Sanders first moved to London she found it hard to strike up conversation with other women she'd often see at her favorite places in the city. Instead, she turned to Instagram to see who else was checking in. A few follows led to 'likes' and eventually she began to feel confident enough to send a few direct message. From there, a new friendship with Stark—and then later, Huggle—was born.

"The places we had in common were The Met, Central Park and a café called Bluestone Lane."

I had a similar experience with Instagram when I first moved to New York; I'd follow other young women if we liked similar brands or accounts on Instagram, and they often followed me back. In some cases, when an Instagram friend saw I moved to New York they reached out with messages like, "Hey, I see you've moved here! We should meet up," which enabled me to make a lot of connections through Instagram early on.

In a way, Huggle takes the hassle out of trying to cultivate friendships on Instagram, and I was eager to get going. I put together my profile, selecting my most approachable photos alongside a witty bio containing a good Seinfeld reference. The app immediately started checking me in, and I began seeing people pop up in 'My Places'. It was interesting seeing how many places I had in common with certain people, and wondered wistfully if I would be shopping with some of them in SoHo in the not too distant future.=

A week or so passed and I hadn't received any messages. I was, admittedly, a little apprehensive to reach out to people myself, but I had my eye on a few cool-looking potential BFFs.

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Ten days later I still hadn't heard from anyone, so decided it was time to reach out. I messaged my top three favorite girls, waited a few days, and heard nothing back. I reached out to a few more, mostly women again and a couple of men, still nothing. I was beginning to feel a bit disheartened. Some of the people I had messaged had even viewed my profile but had chosen not to respond to my message. And guess what? Rejection hurts just as much online as it does IRL.

At the three-week mark of my friendship-making experiment, I threw caution to the wind and messaged about 20 people. I received a sweet reply from James, one of the three men I had messaged earlier on, and I'll admit I wondered if he was interested in more than just friendship—but I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. The places we had in common were The Met, Central Park and a café called Bluestone Lane. I soon found out he had recently moved to New York with his boyfriend and had tried using other apps to make new friends but found those to be littered with people only looking for love or sex. He also mentioned his difficulty in making female friends on other apps—for the same reason I was initially skeptical of his intentions. Huggle, he said, had been easier for him to use. We talked about our reasons for moving to New York and the struggles of being in a new city. Overall, our friendship date was a success.

I'm not sure if the reason I didn't get any other replies was because I put together a terrible-looking profile or if it was because the people I reached out to were still trying to scope me out. Or perhaps the abundance of dating apps has normalized swiping right for love, leaving the idea of making friends through an app still scary and foreign: the raison d'être for Huggle in the first place.

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It's now week four and though my friendship with James has not progressed any further, I do have high hopes for the future—and no doubt the more people who use Huggle the better it will become. So, if you're new to the city or are just sick of your old friends I recommend trying it out—and if you see me, do say hello.

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